Guild Wars 2

Hi.

So I’ve recently got into my first elementalist character after playing a ranger to 80, guardian to 30, and a few other classes to around 20. At level 8 I’m already starting to notice some aesthetic issues regarding the animation set.

First I want to say that I love the art style in GW2 and so far I’m overly impressed with the game world and the small details the dev team has put into the game. You may think my complaints are rather trivial, but being the aesthetic kitten that I am I couldn’t help but feel really let down by the display of the elementalist. Let me explain..

Here is my Charr elementalist. I am holding a scepter in my right hand and a focus in my left. Abilities 1, 2, and 3 are talents that come from using the scepter. In the picture I am using ability 3, yet my charr is casting from her focus.
[IMG]http://i.imgur.com/OSuAWrM.jpg[/IMG]

Here is another example. This time I am casting ability 1 from the earth pool of talents. This time she does use the hand that is holding the scepter, except this time the scepter simply vanishes into thin air and the attack forms out of my hand. Shouldn’t I be shooting magic from the end of my scepter like a wizard would?
[IMG]http://i.imgur.com/Rae0GU8.jpg[/IMG]

Now here is me using the staff, the typical weapon of a wizard. Again, my elementalist isn’t even using the staff, just holding it in one hand while casting spells from her other. This the case with almost all of the abilities with only a few exceptions. Remember Gandolf in LOTR using his hands to put down his enemies? Yeah, me neither.
[IMG]http://i.imgur.com/txQVBtc.jpg[/IMG]

I could post more screenshots but I think I have shown enough to explain what my issue is. To me it just feels out of place, and goes against the aesthetic of being a mage/wizard/elementalist. A staff or scepter is a tool used by the magic user, not simply a cosmetic I get to hold to symbolize my magic ability.

I always found it kind of odd indeed that the Scepter disappears on Earth auto. I suppose the idea is that your hand emanates the earth splinters or something…

I have to say though, I see nothing wrong with the third image. Looks amazing to me, and kinda honestly makes me wish I’d made my elementalist Charr.

That picture in particular goes along with the idea that staff and scepter are sort of a focusing tool. She may be conjuring water from her main paw, but without some sort of item to use, it would be considerably harder to do/less reliable.

Halcyon.7352:

I have to say though, I see nothing wrong with the third image. Looks amazing to me, and kinda honestly makes me wish I’d made my elementalist Charr.

I agree, the effects and animations do look amazing. But it looks like they made the animations and effects first before taking the scepters and staffs into consideration.

I took another screenshot. This time it’s the main electric attack of the scepter. Not only is the attacking coming from her hand instead of the scepter, she also isn’t even grasping the scepter. She is just casting magic from her hand and the scepter is just pointing to the sky and looks like she just duct taped it on.

http://i.imgur.com/NA0Q198.jpg

I just think it looks silly when my character is attacking foe directly in front of her but her magic tool is pointing in the completely wrong place and seem to just be a cosmetic item.

Engineers get to shoot flames or bullets out of their guns. Warrior players are able to watch their characters cut up an enemy with a sword. Why can’t my elementalist destroy her enemies with the staff I created at the Artificer?

You’re totally right!

I almost forgot to bring this up after the months that I played but this is rather annoying little visual issue.

It shows several things:
-Staff is very consistent with its animations.
-Scepter and Focus skills are…very inconsistent.
-They spent a lot of time with the dagger visuals.

Staff
When I say it’s consistent, I mean a lot of the animations are copied. For auto-attacks, Fire and Earth are the same with different particles while while water and air mirror each other with different particles. This is perfectly fine and the actual look is nice. Basically, you’re using both ‘hands’ to charge the spell, reaching for the staff for the spell and directing it with your hand. Nothing wrong with that and looks pretty striking IMO.

After that, I feel they got a bit lazy. The staff is a focusing tool but no longer do you reach for the staff to charge anything. I don’t have a problem not having the spells come from the staff, but only 1(!!!!) spell actually comes from the staff, Air #2 which is a pretty neat little animation but has a weak particle effect (a big solid and bright bolt, plz!).

Other issues:
-There’s no clear line of sight for these spells. Sometimes I could be trying to cast these on targets behind me and I can’t actually tell because the animation doesn’t indicate any particular direction.

Suggestions:
-Add some staff waving and ground pounding.
—Fire #5 = add staff pound at your feet before reaching to pull down meteors
—Water #3 = wave staff to summon the geyser
—Air #3 = sweep staff laterally to fan the air at the target
—Earth #5 = same as Air #3

Scepter and Focus
When I said these are inconsistent, it’s exactly like the OP says. Sometimes you cast with the correct hand and other times not, sometimes the scepter is there and sometimes it isn’t.

Suggestions:
-Redo some of the animations.
-Borrow from other scepter wielding professions.
-Use the 2-handed forward reaching animations more to make it more dynamic.

The reason Dagger looks pretty good is a lot of the animations use both hands or neither hands.

One reason why Scepter air auto looks the way it does is because the arc of lightning wasn’t there originally. It was just you reaching your hand/scepter out at a target and they buzzed with electricity. They added the arc of lightning visual later but didn’t update the animation. I wouldn’t be opposed to using the Mesmer scepter #3 floaty scepter animation for Air auto (minus the ‘whirl it around you before pointing’ part).

But yeah, if there isn’t already a topic like this, perhaps we need to focus on filling this thread up. If the devs can go back and change the look of the Air elementals when no one asked for it, don’t see why they couldn’t substitute in some animations if asked.

Gandalf. Not Gandolf. Gandalf. :p

And yeah, the lack of staff animations is annoying, not sure why they did it this way. If you played WAR, the animations on the Archmage were how you do the staff spellcasting. It was awesome, and the staff was used the whole time.

Actually the only game where I saw proper staff spellcasting animations.

Elementalists aren’t wizards per-say. The staff and sceptre are as much focus items as, well, the focus. They’re used as supplimental items of power rather than the source or channelling force for power.

As for the Elementalist’s staff animations being too similar, I invite you to look at the Necromancer alternatives. Four of the five have the same animation.

daggers also disappear when you cast certain skills

lightning whip comes to mind.